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Sunday, April 29, 2018

"Lee Camp explains why Iran dropping the dollar probably means an increased push for war with them. Natalie McGill shows how ankle bracelets are bringing the profit-driven prison industry to a living room near you. John F O’Donnell files a report on the not-so-sexy side of the gig economy."

"RALPH NADER IS the best known public advocate in modern U.S. history and has run four times for president. On this special episode of Intercepted, we are going to dig deep into several issues facing the country and the world right now. In case you are not familiar with Nader, he rose to prominence in the 1960s after blowing the lid on extreme safety issues with General Motors and other car manufacturers’ products. His book “Unsafe at Any Speed” was an influential investigation and exposé. Throughout his life, Nader has waged countless campaigns aimed at food safety, worker and environmental protections, ending pollution, cronyism in government, financial crimes, and more. Nader simply calls himself a public citizen.

Many Democrats and liberals continue to blame Nader for George W. Bush’s victory in the 2000 election, even though the claim is demonstrably false. But Nader perseveres and, at the age of 84, he continues to wage the very same battles he has from the start of his public life. His latest book, “Breaking Through Power,” chronicles his various battles against the U.S. government, big corporations, and concentrated political power. The latest Intercepted featured an excerpt of our interview with Nader. What follows is the entire conversation in both audio and transcript form."

"Ralph welcomes back president of Public Citizen, Robert Weissman, for an update on the Trump agenda and what they are doing to fight it. Also, aviation expert William McGee tells us what’s really going on in the airplanes you fly with his book, “Attention All Passengers: The Airlines Dangerous Descent and What You Can Do To Reclaim Our Skies.”

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

"Trumpism is one of many manifestations of the effects of the neoliberal policies of the past generation. These have led to extreme concentration of wealth along with stagnation for the majority. There have been repeated crashes of the deregulated financial institutions, each worse than the last. Bursting bubbles have been followed by huge public bailouts for the perpetrators while the victims have been abandoned. Globalization has been designed to set working people throughout the world in competition with one another while private capital is lavished with benefits. Democratic institutions have eroded. As already mentioned, all of this has led to anger, bitterness, often desperation -- one remarkable effect is the increasing mortality among middle-age whites discovered by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, analyzed as "deaths of despair," a phenomenon unknown in functioning societies."

"Janine Jackson: It is impossible, really, not to connect two recent pieces of news: Residents of Flint, Michigan, have been told that the state that poisoned their drinking water will no longer provide them free bottled water. They'll be going back to paying some of the highest prices in the country, some $200 a month, for water that may still be making them sick. The Washington Post reports at least 12,000 homes in Flint still waiting for replacement of lead pipes.

At the same time, Michigan approved a permit letting the Nestlé Corporation pump more fresh water out of a well in the Great Lakes Basin to bottle and sell at a profit, more than half a million gallons a day, the right to which will cost Nestlé…wait for it…around $200 a year. And that won't increase, although the amount of water they are taking will -- by 60 percent.

This is, in fact, how water rights work in this country, but if it feels wrong to you, you are far from alone. What can be and what is being done? Joining us now to discuss this critical story is Peggy Case. She's president of Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation. She joins us now by phone from near Traverse City."

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

LYIN' RYAN

Paul Ryan is an asshole. His egregious hypocrisy and corrupt tenure as a so called representative should have ended in shame and incarceration, not a lucrative and grotesquely opulent so called retirement.

Friday, April 20, 2018

"No other “democracy” in the developed world comes close to the United States when it comes to giving big-money donors unregulated power in their national electoral processes. Along with other and related characteristics of its election and party system—winner-take-all contests with no proportional representation, rampant partisan gerrymandering of election districts, voter registration problems, corporate media bias and the “federalist” decentralization and partisan control of U.S. election process—this plutocratic campaign finance free-for-all is why the Electoral Integrity Project (a research undertaking funded by the Australian Research Council with a team of researchers based at the University of Sydney and Harvard University) ranks the democratic election integrity of U.S. elections below that of all 19 North and Western European democracies and also below that of 10 other nations in the Americas (Costa Rica, Uruguay, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Jamaica, Grenada, Argentina, Barbados and Peru), 10 nations in Central and Eastern Europe, nine Asian-Pacific countries, two countries in the Middle East (Israel and Tunisia) and six African nations. The U.S. ranks dead last among “Western democracies.”

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

ROUNDUP: TASTES GREAT! - LESS KILLING?

Roundup has been found in dangerous concentrations in baby food, cereal, wine and beer, and is leading to a variety of fatal diseases. Monsanto executives continue to claim it's safe to drink, but no one has ever seen one try it.

"Mike Papantonio and Carol Moore talk about an investigation that found hazardous chemicals in regularly consumed foods and drinks in the US. Anya Parampil then details how the Corona beer producer is aiming to take the water rights of Mexicali residents. Then, Mollye Barrows talks about how the IRS won its case to review thousands of accounts from digital bank Coinbase."

Sunday, April 1, 2018

"Ralph talks to journalist Gareth Porter about why both liberals and conservatives should be afraid - be very afraid - of warhawk John Bolton’s appointment as Trump’s National Security Advisor. And author/activist Julie Wark joins us to talk about why she is “Against Charity.”